Sunday, February 2, 2014

What
a day! Hot, but with good breeze. Then, with so many interesting
invitations to attend.

Mariel
and Doug used to live in Morehead City , NC. Now living in their 32
feet long catamaran. Mariel has an amazing sewing shop and sews canvas for
boats, exercise machines covers and any project that will contribute
to her economy. She also plays the ukulele, my new instrument. That
morning they passed by Salty Shores to invite us to visit them in
their store. "Do you see the dock sticking out the mangroves?
Where the boat with red bimini is tied up?". They said."
Como on over to visit." We spent two hours talking about sewing
and music.

Music every Friday at Dinghy Dock

At
noon, we met Mike at public dock. The idea of our host, who's done a
great job showing us the island, was to walk to the airport and wait
for a bus under the shade of a tree. The walk was great, we enjoyed
the construction work on the houses. After about five minutes of
arriving, we hailed a cab and for three dollars took us to Flamenco beach. At the entrance there were many kiosks selling food. We were
hungry and chose the food stand that smelled better. We ordered
chicken kebabs, rice with red beans, tri-fongo (a ball of green and
ripe plantains, yucca, marinated with crushed garlic and onion). It took a while for the food to come out, but it was so worth to wait.

Culebra

Old war tank on the beach

Playa
Flamenco is a gem for Puerto Ricans. Also it was Saturday. Many young
people and families arrive in the ferry to camp for weekends. Along
the beach, behind the sea grapes trees, we could see the tents. In
the camp are open showers, restrooms and drinkable water tanks. The
beach was crowded, and the only trash on the sand was an old war tank
decorated with graffiti, which is now an icon on the map. Behind the
showers there is a fence, along the same there are several signs of
danger, " unexploded bombs ".

Conga players on Saturday night at the Dinghy Dock

At
eight, we went to "Dinghy Dock Restaurant", where every
Saturday meet four percussionists playing conga. The best Caribbean
Bushwacker in hand and all night to dance ahead. Doug asked me: "do
you know who that man is?", Pointing to older percussionist of
the group, "that is Meñengue, the Grandmaster Meñengue ".
Ignorance is so bad! I thought, but it's never too late to learn. In
the first break Jorge came to talk to us, one of the guys playing the
conga drums, whom we met on his art shop, and he said: "I was in
Cuba last year, how do you call that Alley, where they gather to playdrums? I went with some friends on a sailboat. Then we traveled
around the island with the band Los Irakeres. People are poor, but
they are very loving and hospitable guys. You have something that we
do not have here: "Identity". Then he dismissed, for he had
to go back to his conga. I stayed there, thinking.

At
6:00 am, we pulled the anchor up. The sun had not yet risen, but it
was clear enough for me to see Rossamee anchored ahead, while I
was driving Salty Shores of the port. "The trip back is not going to
be as good." I recalled the words of the captain four days
before, when we entered Culebrita. The bow was pointing east, the
waves and the wind began to arise with the progress of the sun on the
horizon. But in my mind I was just repeating the same word to the rhythm of
the conga: "Identity" .